This is the latest installment of our Top Recruit Series, which will outline the recruiting history since 2000 for each of the seven main conferences. It focuses on the Big 12.)
The Big 12 has produced four of the past 14 Naismith National Players of the Year -- namely Texas' T.J. Ford (2003), Texas' Kevin Durant (2007), Oklahoma's Blake Griffin (2009) and Oklahoma's Buddy Hield (2016). But would you believe only one of them -- Durant -- was a consensus top-15 prospect in his high school class?
It's true.
Ford and Griffin were heralded, to be sure. But neither was a consensus top-15 national recruit. And Hield? He was way off the radar -- just a three-star prospect whom 247Sports ranked 178th in the Class of 2012. Regardless, the 6-4 guard averaged 25.0 points and 5.4 rebounds while leading Oklahoma to the 2016 Final Four. He then became the sixth overall pick of the NBA Draft. He now plays for the New Orleans Pelicans.
Below is a look at the top 25 recruits -- based not on their actual college performance but the recruiting ranking and hype with which they entered school -- since 2000 from current Big 12 programs.
| PLAYER | SCHOOL | POS | YEAR | RATING |
| 1. Andrew Wiggins | Kansas | SF | 2013 |  |
| 2. Kevin Durant | Texas | SF | 2006 | |
| 3. Michael Beasley | Kansas State | PF | 2007 | |
| 4. Josh Jackson | Kansas | SG | 2016 | |
| 5. Isaiah Austin | Baylor | PF | 2012 | |
| 6. Cliff Alexander | Kansas | PF | 2014 | |
| 7. Josh Selby | Kansas | PG | 2010 | |
| 8. Avery Bradley | Texas | SG | 2009 | |
| 9. Quincy Miller | Baylor | PF | 2011 | |
| 10. Julian Wright | Kansas | SF | 2005 | |
| 11. Xavier Henry | Kansas | SG | 2009 | |
| 12. Myles Turner | Texas | C | 2014 | |
| 13. David Padgett | Kansas | C | 2003 | |
| 14. Perry Jones | Baylor | PF | 2010 | |
| 15. Cheick Diallo | Kansas | PF | 2015 | |
| 16. Kelly Oubre | Kansas | SG | 2014 | |
| 17. LeBryan Nash | Oklahoma State | SF | 2011 | |
| 18. Marcus Smart | Oklahoma State | PG | 2012 | |
| 19. Mario Chalmers | Kansas | PG | 2005 | |
| 20. Tristan Thompson | Texas | PF | 2010 | |
| 21. Tiny Gallon | Oklahoma | C | 2009 | |
| 22. Keith Brumbaugh | Oklahoma State | PF | 2005 | |
| 23. Darrell Arthur | Kansas | PF | 2006 | |
| 24. LaMarcus Aldridge | Texas | C | 2004 | |
| 25. Blake Griffin | Oklahoma | PF | 2007 | |
A FEW THOUGHTS
- Andrew Wiggins was the consensus No. 1 prospect in the Class of 2013 -- and he's lived up to that hype. The 6-7 wing averaged 17.1 points and 5.9 rebounds in one season at Kansas before being selected No. 1 overall in the 2014 NBA Draft and earning Rookie of the Year honors. He averaged 20.7 points for the Minnesota Timberwolves last season. He's still only 21 years old.
- Yes, it's true that Josh Selby and Josh Jackson were considered the top-ranked prospects in their high school classes by various recruiting services, and that Kevin Durant was not. But that had more to do with Greg Oden than anything else, which is why I've placed Durant ahead of Selby and Jackson -- and everybody except Wiggins -- on the list above. Simply put, Durant would've been No. 1 in lots of classes, if not most classes. But he happened to be in the same class as Oden, whom basically everybody projected as basketball's next dominant big man before injuries robbed him of his physical gifts. It's still a shame, what happened to the Ohio State center who helped the Buckeyes make the national championship game in his one season of college basketball. Oden really was a special talent.
- It might seem weird to see Isaiah Austin so high on the list above. But, remember, he was a consensus top-three prospect in the Class of 2012 and ranked ahead of Steven Adams, Anthony Bennett, Marcus Smart, Gary Harris, Sam Dekker, Kris Dunn, Willie Cauley-Stein and Jordan Adams, just to name a few. The 7-1 forward averaged double-figures in points in both seasons at Baylor before entering the NBA Draft. But he was diagnosed with Marfan Syndrome (enlarged arteries in his heart) in June 2014, at which point his basketball career ended.
- There are only seven current NBA players who have won both an NCAA championship and an NBA title -- one of whom is Mario Chalmers, the guy ranked 19th on the list above. The 6-1 guard averaged double-figures in points in all three years at Kansas. He finished with 180 made 3-pointers -- none bigger than this one in the 2008 national title game.
- A player who isn't on the above list but probably should be is Joel Embiid. Believe it or not, the 7-foot forward wasn't a consensus top-15 prospect in the Class of 2013, which I recognized as a mistake the first time I watched him work out inside Allen Fieldhouse, a month before his freshman season began at Kansas. The recruiting services, for the most part, rarely miss on the truly elite prospects. But, for some reason, just about everybody underrated Embiid, who is finally healthy after two years of injuries and a decent candidate to be the 2016-17 NBA Rookie of the Year.
FIVE UNDERACHIEVERS
1. Cliff Alexander (Kansas): Alexander was a consensus top-five prospect in the Class of 2014 who only averaged 17.6 minutes per game in his lone season at Kansas. That ranked seventh on KU's team. He went unselected in the 2015 NBA Draft.
2. Josh Selby (Kansas): Selby ranked sixth in minutes played per game in his one season at Kansas despite being ranked as the No. 4 prospect in the Class of 2010, according to 247Sports. The Baltimore native was a late second-round pick in the 2011 NBA Draft. To date, he's only appeared in 38 NBA games.
3. Quincy Miller (Baylor): Miller was ranked No. 5 in the Class of 2011, according to 247Sports. But he never seemed to fully recover from a torn ACL suffered during his senior year of high school -- though he entered the NBA Draft after one year at Baylor anyway. The result: Miller was the 38th pick in 2012. He's only appeared in 69 NBA games and is now playing overseas.
4. Cheick Diallo (Kansas): Diallo was ranked No. 5 in the Class of 2015, according to 247Sports, but only played 7.5 minutes per game in one season at KU. He didn't play at all in the Elite Eight loss to Villanova last March, meaning Diallo never got off of the bench in his final NCAA game.
5. Keith Brumbaugh (Oklahoma State): Brumbaugh was ranked 10th in the Class of 2005, according to 247Sports, and a key member of Oklahoma State's top-ranked recruiting class that year. But he never actually played for the Cowboys because of eligibility issues. The 6-10 forward was arrested six times in a 26-month span, spent one season playing in junior college and then entered the 2008 NBA Draft. Unsurprisingly, he was not selected. Brumbaugh never appeared in a Division I game or an NBA game.
FIVE OVERACHIEVERS
1. Buddy Hield (Oklahoma): Hield was ranked 178th in the Class of 2012, according to 247Sports. And yet he still went on to be a two-time Big 12 Player of the Year, the 2016 Naismith National Player of the Year and a lottery pick who is set to make $3.5 million this season. Not bad.
2. Melvin Ejim (Iowa State): Ejim was ranked 182nd in the Class of 2010, according to 247Sports. But he outperformed that ranking easily. The 6-6 forward averaged 10.3 points and 6.7 rebounds as a freshman, 9.3 points and 6.6 rebounds as a sophomore, 11.3 points and 9.3 rebounds as a junior, and 17.8 points and 8.4 rebounds as a senior. He was the Big 12 Player of the Year in 2014.
3. Jacob Pullen (Kansas State): Pullen was a three-star prospect from the Class of 2007 who was unranked by 247Sports and Rivals. Still, the 6-1 guard finished his college career with 2,132 points after averaging 19.3 points as a junior and 20.2 points as a senior. He's Kansas State's all-time scoring leader.
4. Joe Mazzulla (West Virginia): Mazzulla was a two-star prospect whom 247Sports ranked 468th in the Class of 2006. (I honestly didn't even know recruiting rankings went that low.) But he developed into an important figure in Bob Huggins' program anyway. The 6-2 guard scored 17 points in the Mountaineers' Elite Eight upset of Kentucky in the 2010 NCAA Tournament that ended the college careers of John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins and Eric Bledsoe. Mazzulla was subsequently named the East Region's Most Outstanding Player.
5. Frank Mason (Kansas): Mason was the lowest-rated prospect in Kansas' six-player class in 2013 -- just a three-star recruit completely overshadowed by Andrew Wiggins, Wayne Selden and Joel Embiid. Regardless, he's had a nice impact on the program. The 5-11 guard averaged 12.6 points as sophomore and 12.9 as a junior. He's now the leading returning scorer for a preseason top-five team that's picked to win the Big 12.
FINAL THOUGHT
The saddest story here, in terms of a prospect completely wasting his natural ability, obviously belongs to Keith Brumbaugh. Because, seriously, how often does a top-10 national recruit fail to ever appear in a Division I game or an NBA game?
That's very, very rare.
Curious, I started Googling to see if I could find what Brumbaugh is up to these days. I was wishing for the best but expecting the worst. And the most recent thing I found was ... a 2014 arrest rooted in Brumbaugh allegedly throwing a cinder block at a 67-year-old man during a road rage incident.
Yeesh.
So, yeah, there are plenty of basketball busts, relative to their high school rankings, on the list above. But nobody has been a bigger bust than Keith Brumbaugh. He went from being Florida's Mr. Basketball to someone who was jailed in Florida. That's quite a fall from grace. Hopefully he gets things figured out, someday.
